


Circles

by calicokat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2795120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calicokat/pseuds/calicokat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia has started a life with Peter. His fits of rage haunt them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circles

She curls into his side, an arm lain across his broad chest. His hand covers hers. He stares up at the ceiling, his eyes damp with tears unshed. 

She kisses his shoulder.

"I know someone who can help you," she coaxes. "She helped me."

Peter clenches his jaw, teeth grinding. His brow flinches. Lydia flinches, too, the sound of dishes shattering on the tile floor only a half hour distant.

He looks wide-eyed to her. She swallows, but lies unapologetic against him.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he pleads.

She knows this story. She's heard a thousand women tell it all her life, fragment to fragment but in the end always the same.

Peter _is_ different, she reminds herself fiercely. Not more deserving or less deserving, not incapable of hurting her, not always a good man, but not a man, either: a werewolf. The animal spirit he carries inside him entwines seamlessly with the human, it's all he's ever known, and he sees her in a way no human man sees a woman. 

More than lovers, more than partners, they're pack.

As he looks for reasons to justify the fear and disquiet inside him he's unlikely to land on her, to blame her, to trap her, to be anything other than more loyal by the month but she's still terrified. She refuses to hide it. All that means is when he stops breaking dishes in unpredictable piques he'll find someone besides _her_ to blame.

He tried to kill Scott. She can't forget that.

"Peter," she says. "You have to get help." She refuses to live in fear. She refuses for _him_ to live in fear. "I won't let you make me do this by myself."

Peter's hand tightens over hers. His eyes return to the ceiling. He sucks a breath in through his teeth and exhales beneath her arm in the dark.

"She knew. The whole time I was in Eichen, she knew and she _let_ them trap me inside my own mind. Morrell doesn't _help,_ she inflicts her religious principles on her victims," he spits, growl rumbling through his chest.

Lydia squeezes her eyes shut. Makes a decision. Hardens her voice at the same time she grants him his grudge. Vallack escaped using Peter's maddened screams to drive Eichen House's confined monsters into a frenzy. As much as Lydia wants to believe in if not Morrell then Deaton, she can't say for certain Morrell was taken by surprise – those siblings are nothing if not enigmatic.

"You're going to have to see another professional, then. A _human_ professional."

Peter laughs out loud, his voice cracking.

"Now, you really think that'll help?" he drawls, lop-sided smirk hung on his lips, defenses rising.

Lydia struggles with the urge to meet snark with snark. She feels young, afraid again, and suddenly very alone.

She presses her lips to a firm line, blinking back the fresh dampness in her own eyes.

"This is how you lose me," she says very softly, a void aching inside her Allison's love and support once filled.

He drives her away every time.

Peter freezes, fear scrawled across his expression. She watches his paranoia begin tearing its way inside him. She thinks _I can call Scott,_ and now her eyes brim, tear spilling over.

"No, no, sweetheart, no," he's saying dumbly, hand flying from where it rests over hers to cup her cheek, brushing her tear away.

She chews on her lower lip, seeing a mirror of herself in his face, now, and **sick** of losing everyone she loves.

He's a wolf, she remembers. He's a wolf, and she doesn't have to do this again. Letting go of the human complications, instead of waiting for him to meet her, she decides.

"You, Peter Hale, are seeing a psychologist," she repeats even more firmly than before, not allowing herself to doubt it.

His brow contorts in confusion as if he had no idea she was serious in the first place.

"You're making an appointment tomorrow," she goes on, seeing his slight, unconscious nod, Peter in his sudden sobriety a mirror image of her still.

She pauses, stunned, her mouth falling open. 

In his immediate concern he brings both hands to her face, rolling onto his side to face her, worrying over her with his touch.

Lydia's throat tightens. She thinks _Allison_ and _He tried to kill, Scott_ and _God, I can't lose him._

Her voice falters. She's crying, now. She laughs helplessly, whispering hoarsely:

"Because I am, too."

Even as she breaks she sees Peter's mind reeling behind his eyes, quickly catching up, finally, maturely slotting piece after piece into place as, however briefly, his paranoia, like a fever, breaks.

One hand slides into her hair. He presses his mouth to hers and kisses her falling tears from her lips until she calms.

"God, you're young," he wonders over her aloud, a furrow deep-knit in his brow, one hand firm at the small of her back, the other cupping her head.

Lydia laughs through her tears, pressing herself against his bigger body, her thin nightgown between them. He holds her close, now fiercely protective, and she kisses his collarbone.

"Mmhm," she hums to herself. She reviews everything she knows about wolves, piecing together the puzzle of him in turn – the way he responds to her; mimics her. "But I'm your Alpha, now."


End file.
